


Intervention

by NotYouAgain



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Snarky Jarvis, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 15:51:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9769145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotYouAgain/pseuds/NotYouAgain
Summary: Bored of sitting around at home, Tony goes to a bar, where he finds a very drunk Loki. Loki’s drinking is getting out of hand, and Tony decides to do something about it...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another 'Loki is banished to Earth without magic' fic, sorry. This is the first fic I have written for a long time (I mean a really long time) so I hope it turned out OK. I have no idea if my writing is any good so feedback is appreciated if anyone has the time or the inclination.
> 
> Also, for anyone who's never heard of him, Oliver Reed was a brilliant English actor who, sadly, became better known for his alcoholism than his acting.

Tony Stark was bored.

Clint and Natasha were on vacation, Thor was in Texas visiting Jane, and Steve and Bruce were at S.H.I.E.L.D HQ debriefing with Fury, something about a minor incident in New Orleans, so he had the place to himself. He had kept himself busy as best he could; he had fixed everything that needed fixing (and a few things that didn’t), he had tinkered with everything that could be tinkered with, he had added a few extras to some of the newer Iron Man suits, he had even upgraded the toilets (don’t ask), and now he had nothing to do.

TV was dull. Right now he was watching a girl in a blue dress warbling her way through ‘I Will Always Love You’ in front of a panel of smug-looking judges in the hope of getting a recording contract. She was good, but she was kinda chubby and her nose was slightly crooked, so Tony was pretty sure she wouldn’t get through. They’d picked that blonde girl though. She had murdered Tina Turner’s ‘Simply The Best’ but she looked good in a crop top and skinny jeans.

“All about the music, my ass.”

Tony stretched and levered himself off of the couch. “JARVIS, I’m going out.”

_Very good, sir, which car will you be taking this evening?_

“No car, JARVIS, I’m going for a walk.”

There was a pause. _Walk, sir?_

“Yes, JARVIS, walk. It’s this thing people do when they put one foot in front of the other and propel themselves along.”

_I am aware of the meaning of the word, sir, I was merely expressing my surprise, since you have not partaken in that particular activity for quite some time._

Was it his imagination, or had JARVIS just implied that he was unfit? It was certainly indispensable, but sometimes Tony regretted making the artificial intelligence so... well, intelligent.

“You’re about one more insult away from me deleting you and creating a new AI, a far less snarky one.”

_I am not familiar with that particular term, sir, is it a form of teenage slang?_

Tony pointed a finger at the ceiling from where the disembodied voice emanated. “That right there, JARVIS? That’s snarky.”

_I would advise taking a car, sir, the weather is somewhat inclement this evening, and I would hate for you to slip and break a hip._

Tony grabbed a jacket and left before he really did end up pulling the plug on JARVIS.

It felt great to get out of Stark Tower for a while, even if it was raining. The street lights and neon reflected wetly on the asphalt, making the place seem somehow brighter, even though it was beginning to get dark.

Tony pulled his jacket more tightly around himself to keep the rain off his neck. The breeze was picking up and it was getting colder. At least the rain wasn’t too heavy...

As if some cruel God had read his mind, the heavens suddenly opened.

Cursing himself for jinxing it, Tony looked around. There was an open doorway about fifty yards away, the flickering neon sign above it proclaiming it to be 'HARRY’S B R'. Guessing that the missing letter was A, Tony hurried across to the open door and ducked inside.

He found himself face to face with a huge man with a bald head and a t-shirt with SECURITY emblazoned across the front. He scowled down at Tony as if pissed off that he had the temerity to come in and drip on his floor. To most people he would have been intimidating, but Tony Stark wasn’t most people.

“Hi,” he said brightly. “If you would excuse me, I was rather hoping I might partake of a drink in this fine establishment.”

The man continued to glare at him. Tony looked down at the puddle of rain water he was standing in. “Sorry about that. I’m sure if you ask nicely someone will bring you a mop to clean that up with. A good scrub and this floor could be as shiny as your head.” He strode quickly through the inner door before the big man had time to realise that he had been insulted, and into the bar.

The place was such a dive that Tony felt like he should be wearing a wetsuit and scuba gear. The heavy fug of cigarette smoke stung his eyes and cast a gloomy shadow throughout the bar. He could feel his feet sticking to the floor. There were several young couples (mostly underage, by the look of it) holding hands across tables or playing pool. The rest of the bar’s clientele seemed to consist of middle aged men with no necks and two days worth of stubble on their faces, and women with brassy blonde hair, smudged red lipstick and low cut tops that showed far too much drooping cleavage. At least the jukebox in the corner was playing AC/DC, so it wasn’t all bad.

Since the alternative was going back out into the pouring rain, Tony crossed to the bar, behind which a young woman with greasy hair was reading a magazine and chewing gum.

“Excuse me,” he called politely. The woman ignored him. “Hello?” he called again. The woman carried on reading her magazine. Tony gave up being polite. “Ding ding, service please!” The woman looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “Is there any danger of getting a drink in this place?”

The woman slammed the magazine down and stomped over to him. “What’re ya havin?”

Tony ordered a bourbon, which the woman shoved across the bar at him before going back to her magazine.

Tony stood leaning against the bar, deciding that this was not an establishment that he would be frequenting on a regular basis. As he drank, he happened to glance along the length of the bar at the small group of men sitting there.

It couldn’t be, could it?

He peered through the gloom at the familiar figure. It had to be him, there was no mistaking that long, thin face, or those green eyes that seemed to glow faintly in the dim light of the smokey room.

Loki was chattering animatedly to two men who stood either side of him at the bar. He was swaying unsteadily on the stool he was sitting on, and even at this distance Tony could see that he was blind drunk. What the hell was he doing in a place like this?

Loki must have said something funny, because the two men sitting with him started laughing raucously, and the taller one put a possessive arm around his shoulders. Tony felt a small, inexplicable flash of annoyance. Loki drained his glass and the tall man called for another. As the gum-chewing barmaid irritably handed him the glass, the shorter of the two men slid off of his barstool and sidled around to the taller man.

Tony slid nonchalantly along the bar, drawing closer so that he could hear their conversation.

“Well?” Shorty asked. “Whaddya think?”

The tall man turned his lumpy, pockmarked face towards him and grinned, showing at least two missing teeth. “The amount he’s drunk, I reckon he’d take both of us at the same time. Just depends which end you want.”

A small, angry burn started in Tony’s brain as he realised what they were talking about.

Shorty grinned too; he had all of his teeth, although most of them were black. “I got dibs on that pretty mouth. So, we taking him back with us or what?”

Ugly shook his head. “Nah, little whore’s not worth the cab fare.” He pointed at a door at the far end of the dingy room, which Tony guessed led to the restroom. “In there’s as good a place as any. Got no lube, but what the fuck, if you’re screwin’ his mouth no one’s gonna hear him anyway. I’ll go make sure that we got the place to ourselves, you bring him in in a couple minutes.” He got up and headed for the restroom, while Shorty went back to sit by Loki.

After a few seconds of quiet seething, Tony picked up an empty beer bottle from the bar and followed Ugly through the restroom door.

“I thought I told you to wait...” Ugly turned and frowned when he saw Tony. “What the fuck do you want?”

Tony wrinkled his nose as the man’s sour breath assaulted him. Up close, Ugly smelled like some diseased animal that had crawled into a trashcan and died. “Well, I wasn’t going to bring it up straight away, but since you ask, let’s start with two hundred dollars.”

“Two hundred... what the fuck for?”

“For the use of my boy, of course,” Tony replied smoothly. “I really should charge extra since there’s two of you, but I’m feeling generous.”

“Your boy? You ain’t no pimp.”

“I just dress better than the rest of them.”

“He ain’t worth two hundred dollars.”

“Aw, come on, a pretty boy like him? Two hundred’s cheap! Plus, there’s the added hassle of having to wash your stink off him after you’re done,” he added.

Ugly’s face turned bright red as he advanced menacingly on Tony. “ And what the fuck are you goin’ to do about it if I refuse?” His mouth dropped open as he felt something cold and hard press against his stomach.

“Then I’m gonna put a bullet in your gut and leave you dying in a puddle of your own shit and blood. You want that?”

Ugly shook his head.

“Thought not. Now get out of here, and take your loathsome little friend with you.”

Ugly bolted out of the restroom, and Tony watched with satisfaction as he grabbed Shorty by the collar and pulled him off of his stool. That had worked better than he thought it would. He’d have been screwed if Ugly had looked down and realised that the ‘gun’ he’d jammed into his gut was in fact the neck of an empty bottle; Tony hadn’t had a plan B.

He waited until the tall guy had dragged his protesting companion out of the door, then sauntered casually back to the bar to stand next to Loki. “Hey, Reindeer Games,” he said, as if noticing Loki for the first time. “Long time, no see.”

Loki turned to face him, peering blearily at Tony as if trying to place him. “Anthony Stark,” he said eventually, looking rather proud of himself for remembering Tony’s face. “I’ss been a while. Have you met... oh, they’ve gone.”

He looked around him, searching for Shorty and Ugly, Tony guessed, and seeming a little disappointed when he couldn’t find them. He turned back to the bar, the movement causing him to teeter on his stool.

“So... how’re you doing?” Tony asked.

“Oh, you know, can’t complain.” Loki’s naturally pale skin had a greyish tinge to it, and there were dark circles under his unfocused green eyes. Add that to the faded black shirt and blue jeans that he wore, and the lank, tangled hair, he looked as if he had plenty worth complaining about.

“How many of those have you had?” Tony asked, as Loki picked up his glass of Scotch to take a drink, and missed his mouth. He hadn’t been planning on asking right away, but he didn’t think it would wait.

Loki peered into the glass as if he might find the answer floating around inside. “Three or four... or eleven... maybe twelve, I don’t know, I haven’t been counting.”

This was not good. OK, Tony got that life couldn’t exactly be a picnic for the guy, but what had happened to cause Loki—vain, aristocratic Loki—to allow himself to fall into this state?

 

 

It had been almost two years since Thor had called everyone together for a meeting at the Tower. Tony had had mixed feelings about this, the place may have become a sort of impromptu Avengers HQ, but it was still mostly his place, and if anyone was going to call a meeting it should be him, dammit!

He had been even more perturbed when Thor had walked in, propelling a rather dazed looking Loki before him. He’d only just finished rebuilding!

Not half as perturbed as the others had been, apparently. Clint had been on his feet in an instant, screaming obscenities and describing, in graphic detail, what he would do to Loki if he got within ten feet of him. Steve, who was holding Clint back, had looked... well, confused mostly, but that was nothing new. Natasha was shooting the god a look that would have frozen lava, and Tony remembered thinking, not for the first time, that it was probably a good thing the girl didn’t have any superpowers. She was scary enough without them. Only Bruce, sitting on one of the cream couches, seemed to maintain any semblance of calm, although whether that serenity was genuine or if he was concentrating on holding back his rage, Tony couldn’t tell.

“It is his punishment,” Thor had explained once everyone had calmed down. “Mother could not bear to see him executed, and while the dungeon kept him secure, it did his mind no good. An eternity locked up in the dark bowels of Asgard would have driven him mad.”

Tony could see why that could have been a problem. Loki in charge of all his faculties was dangerous enough—an unpredictable, unhinged Loki would be a potential disaster. “That doesn’t explain what he’s doing here,” he pointed out.

“That was my doing,” Thor had sounded apologetic. “I suggested an alternative penalty, which Father was gracious enough to accept. From this moment, Loki is stripped of his magic and banished here to Midgard. He may never return home.”

Thor put both huge hands on his brother’s shoulders and pushed him gently down onto the couch opposite Bruce. Loki put up no resistance, he simply sat where Thor had put him, staring straight ahead as though looking through space. He looked... destroyed was the only word that could really describe it.

“And you honestly thought it was a good idea to bring him back here?” Natasha hissed. “He’s already proved he’ll ally himself with anyone who offers him a chance for power, someone says they’ll give him a planet to rule and he’ll turn on us in a second.”

“There is no danger of that happening. Loki’s magic has been taken from him. Aside from an abnormally long lifespan compared with most of Earth’s inhabitants, he is essentially mortal. He would be of no use to anyone who wished to exploit him.” He squeezed Loki’s shoulder, a gesture of comfort.

“Then why not allow him to remain on Asgard?” Steve had asked. “If he no longer poses any threat, why bother to send him here?”

“That is not an option. Loki has made many enemies in Asgard, without his magic to protect him he would not be safe there.”

“Let them have him,” Clint spat. “It’d be no more than he deserved.”

“I understand your anger, Hawkeye, and were he anyone else I would likely share your sentiment. But in spite of what he has done, he is still my brother, and I would see no harm come to him. I... could not.”

“I think it’s a great idea.”

Everyone turned to look at Bruce, who until now had been silent. “I think it could work. Loki may have done some terrible things, but I don’t believe that anyone is wholly irredeemable. Everyone deserves a second chance. You may disagree, but trust me, a person can never get better if you simply write them off as a monster.”

There was silence. No one was going to argue that point with Bruce.

Tony had stared long and hard at the couch where Loki sat, seemingly numb with shock, shrinking into the upholstery as if he might disappear into it. Was this really the guy who had destroyed his building and thrown him out of his own window?

“I agree with Bruce,” he heard himself saying, to his own surprise. “How many of us were given a second chance to do the right thing? How many of us wouldn’t be here now if we hadn’t? Besides, what can he get up to with us around? I’m sure between us we should be able to keep him out of trouble.”

 

 

Famous last words, Tony thought now, as he watched Loki wobble precariously on his barstool.

 

 

Loki had hung around the Tower for around six months, in a state of utter depression. Remembering how close he had come to derailing himself a while back, Tony had gone out of his way to cheer him up. Bruce had also taken it upon himself to try and talk him round. And sometimes it seemed to be working. They would see the occasional flash of the old Loki, the biting wit, the sarcasm, the odd hint of an innocent, almost childlike smile, (not the psychotic, city-destroying side, luckily) and Tony had found himself growing rather... fond of him. But after a few days he would slip back down into his own personal darkness, and eventually he had disappeared, having left Thor a note saying that he needed to spend some time alone to figure out what to do with himself. Natasha and Clint were glad to see the back of him, but Tony found that he kinda missed him.

Maybe it was for the best. Lately Tony had found his feelings for the ex-god slipping rather uncomfortably beyond the realms of ‘fond’ and heading dangerously quickly towards ‘inappropriate’. These thoughts having absolutely nothing to do with the time he had found Loki emerging from the bathroom with wet hair and a towel around his waist, water glistening on his porcelain skin, running in rivulets over his taut stomach and down towards his... No! Bad Tony!

He had seen Loki a few times since his departure, usually when he dropped by to check in with Thor, as the elder brother had insisted he do. Loki had learned that ignoring this instruction usually resulted in being carried into the building over his brother’s shoulder. Each time he visited he looked thinner, paler, more exhausted.

“Why not just keep him here, where you can keep an eye on him?” Tony had asked once. “Surely it’d be better than letting him go downhill like this?”

“I fear it would do no good.” Thor had looked genuinely upset. “The All-Father’s sentence said nothing about keeping him confined, so Loki is free to come and go as he wishes. I am afraid that, were I to force him to stay here, he would allow his anger and resentment towards me to consume him entirely. He already hates me for having him banished here, even though it was the only thing I could do to save him. He said... he told me once that he would have preferred a death sentence to the pointless existence that I had condemned him to.” The sight of the hulking blond god looking like he might break down and weep had to rank among the top ten most awful things Tony had ever seen. “My only hope is that by allowing him his freedom I may yet avoid pushing him away from me altogether. At least then we might stand a chance of helping him.”

“And when do we do that?”

Thor looked gravely at him. “When he can no longer help himself.”

 

 

That time was probably now, Tony decided.

Loki drained his glass and slammed it down on the bar, causing it to crack. “E’scuse me,” he called to the barmaid, “ Can I get another one o’ these?”

He held up a hand to get the woman’s attention, and slid sideways off of his barstool.

Tony caught him under the arms before he could fall. “I think you’ve probably had enough,” he said firmly.

“Course I haven’t, I c’n still see you. Another one please!”

Tony took him by the shoulders and turned Loki to face him. “Seriously, you’ve had enough. And you...” He turned on the barmaid, who was already refilling Loki’s cracked glass, “... Do you make a habit of serving people who are already clearly intoxicated? You’re lucky I don’t report this.”

He picked up the half filled glass, drained the contents, and then, pulling Loki’s arm around his shoulders, he manoeuvred out of the door, giving the grumpy security guard a little wave as he passed, and out into the wet street.

Being taller, Loki leaned on his shoulder rather than hanging off of it, which made Tony’s job a little easier. Only a little though.

“I wanted that drink,” Loki pouted.

“I needed it more than you did. Besides, you can barely stand up and, skinny as you are, I’m not carrying you home.”

“Home? You mean back to your Tower?”

“That’s the one.”

“Oh, uh... well, it’s really not... and I...got...stuff to...” Loki tried to pull away from him, a sudden bundle of nerves.

Tony put an arm around his waist, hugging him tightly to his side to stop him from running (that was the only reason, of course). “Hey, it’s OK. Thor’s away, if that’s what you’re worried about. Everyone’s out doing their own thing, we’ve got the place to ourselves.”

“Oh. Tha’s alright then.” Loki brightened up. “Hey, there’s another bar down there, we could...”

“No, we couldn’t.”

“Oh, come on. I thought you were the fun one.”

“I am the fun one. Steve would be giving you a lecture on the evils of alcohol right now, I’m just giving you the occasional disapproving look.”

“Ha! I am the god of mischief, I am impervious to... oh...” Loki swallowed convulsively, and Tony managed to turn him away before he puked on his shoes.

“Feel better?” he asked once Loki had got it all up.

Loki shook his head and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “He’d be ashamed of me, wouldn’t he?”

Tony didn’t have to ask who he was talking about. “He wouldn’t be ashamed. A little upset, maybe. But, like I said, he’s not around right now, so we’ll worry about that when we get to it, Ok?”

Tony half carried, half dragged his inebriated companion back to the Tower. By the time they got there the rain had soaked through Tony’s thin jacket, while Loki, in only his shirt and jeans, was shivering slightly.

_Welcome home, sir. Is it raining outside? Your jacket appears to be a little damp._

“One day, JARVIS, someone’s going to invent a way for computers to feel pain. And if you’re not careful, that someone’s going to be me.”

Taking a detour past the laundry room to grab a couple of towels, Tony hauled Loki up to the penthouse and deposited him onto a couch. “Here, dry yourself off a little. I’m gonna go get some dry clothes, I’ll grab some for you too.”

Leaving Loki on the couch, Tony went to his bedroom and into the enormous walk-in wardrobe. There were his suits, all immaculately pressed, his casual clothes, mostly consisting of jeans and band t-shirts (except the Black Sabbath one that Ozzy had autographed, he’d had that one framed), ties, shoes etc.

He picked up a pair of sweatpants and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt, which he dumped on his bed, and began to undress. His wet clothes stuck to him and he struggled to remove them, but eventually he stood naked before the bed, his toes digging into the thick carpet. He rubbed the towel over his body and hair, mopping up the worst of the rain water, before pulling on the sweatpants and slipping the t-shirt over his head.

“Nice,” said a voice behind him.

Tony jumped, and became entangled in his t-shirt. After a few moments of frantic wriggling he located the neck hole and pushed his head out.

Loki was standing in the bedroom doorway. How long had he been there? Long enough to see him in the buff? If it had been anyone else he would have made a glib comment, something along the lines of ‘does my butt look big in this?’ but a sudden image of Loki in nothing but that towel popped into his head, and the most sensible thing he could come out with was “Huh?”

“The room. I’ss very nice. Big bed.” Loki crossed to the foot of the bed, turned, spread his arms wide, and flopped backwards onto the huge bed, a wide, blissed-out smile on his face. “Niiiiiice,” he repeated.

“You’re getting my bed all wet,” Tony pointed out.

“Ha. Sleeping in the wet patch.” Loki’s smile grew wider.

Chuckling, Tony took Loki’s hand and attempted to help him up, and only succeeded in pulling him around ninety degrees so that he lay sideways across the bed. Loki started to giggle.

Tony took hold of the front of Loki’s shirt and pulled him up so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed. “C’mon, Oliver Reed, you need to sleep this off. Get those wet clothes off, go take a shower and we’ll find you a bed for the night.”

Tony picked up his own wet things, carried them through to his en-suite bathroom and shoved them in the laundry hamper. He returned to find Loki struggling with the buttons on his shirt, the long fingers fumbling as he tried to undo them. Eventually he gave up and tried to pull the shirt off over his head, becoming hopelessly tangled.

Tony watched him, trying (and failing) to keep from laughing. “You alright in there?” he asked.

“May whoever invented buttons be cursed to a world made entirely of velcro.” Loki’s voice was muffled from inside his shirt.

Shaking his head, Tony crouched in front of Loki, pulled the shirt down again and began to undo the buttons. Once they were all free he pushed the wet material off of Loki’s shoulders and helped him to wriggle his arms out of the sleeves. He looked thinner than Tony remembered him, and he couldn’t help but notice the stiffness of the nipples and the little pinpricks of raised flesh on the pale skin, or the fact that he was shivering.

Loki had clearly seen it too. “Never used to feel the cold,” he murmured, more to himself than to Tony.

“You need sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.” Tony pulled off Loki’s shoes and socks, which were soaked, and then paused for a while, thinking. He really ought to get Loki to take his jeans off himself, but his overactive imagination was already sending him some rather hideous images of what might happen if the uncoordinated ex-god got his hands on that zipper!

Deciding that it was probably the lesser of two evils, Tony slid the zipper down carefully, then took hold of the waistband and peeled the wet denim down over Loki’s hips, Loki at least remembering to raise his rear off of the bed so as not to impede his progress.

Tony stopped. Well, that was unexpected... “Uh, Loki, you forgotten something there, bud?”

The look on Loki’s face told him that he didn’t know what Tony was talking about. “You, uh... You’re not wearing underwear...” Loki gave him a confused little frown. “Y’know, underwear. You wear it... well... under... y’know, underneath your clothes?”

“This is a Midgard thing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I suppose it must be.” Underwear clearly was not considered a necessity on Asgard. And Thor? All throughout the New York incident, and in all the time since, the guy had been going commando? Tony wasn’t sure he would be able to look at him the same way again.

Trying to ignore the fact that he had just been treated to a full-frontal view of Loki in all his glory (and the fact that his cock appeared to have woken up and was demanding to be allowed a peek too) Tony tugged the jeans down Loki’s long legs and off, then stood up. “You want that shower, Prancer? It’d warm you up.”

Loki didn’t reply.

“Look, you’re not the first naked guy I’ve had sitting on my bed, but you are the first one that’s been sitting in a puddle shivering. We need to get you warmed up.”

“Do you think I’m bad, Stark?”

Tony felt his brain freeze. This wasn’t the first time a naked guy had asked him this question either, but at least on those occasions he had had a little more context. “Bad how?” he asked cautiously.

“Father thinks I’m bad. He hates me. Thor thinks I’m bad, he wouldn’t have dumped me here on Midgard if he didn’t. Mother was the only one who ever saw any good in me, and I’ll never see her again.”

Loki looked so upset that Tony was moved to put a hand on his arm and give it a gentle squeeze. “Hey, don’t talk like that. You’re not a bad person, Loki. OK, so you could work on deflating that ego of yours, and you can hold a grudge for a long time... I mean a really long time...” One look at Loki’s face told him that his pep talk wasn’t helping, “...But I don’t think that you’re bad. Not at all.”

Loki was looking at him with a very strange expression on his face. “You... you mean it? You don’t hate me?”

“Why would you think that I hated you?”

“I threw you out of a window.”

“That was ages ago. Just because we had a massive fight and you broke... well, everything... it doesn’t mean that I hate you.”

He barely saw Loki move. One moment the pale god was sat trembling on his bed, the next he had leapt forwards and wrapped his arms around Tony’s neck, pulling the surprised engineer down onto the bed, on top of him. Tony could smell the Scotch lingering on the other man’s breath as Loki sought out his lips, the long legs winding around his hips, pulling Tony’s crotch towards his own.

Even without his magic, Loki was still stronger than the average human, and Tony had to struggle with all his might to free himself from the frantic embrace. Bracing his hands against the mattress, he managed to push himself upwards, freeing himself from the clinging arms. “Loki... what the fuck?“

“Lay with me, Anthony.”

“What?!”

The bright green eyes, hazy from drink, looked imploringly up at him. “Please, Anthony, I want it, I want you to take me. I’ll let you do anything you want, just fuck me, please, let me feel you inside me.”

Oh God...

Tony could feel heat flooding his loins. His cock sprung to life again, pushing urgently against the fabric of his sweatpants. He’d always been a sucker for dirty talk, and to hear such words falling from the lips of the man whose image had increasingly invaded his most intimate dreams was almost more than he could bear. Every fantasy he had had since Loki had been exiled to Earth was coming true right here, right now, the object of his deepest desires was laid out naked and willing before him, his for the taking.

Tony grabbed Loki’s hands, pulling them up over his head. He gripped both of the slender wrists in one large hand, pinning them to the mattress. Then, with the other hand, he unwound the god’s legs from his hips and pulled away from him, stifling a disappointed groan as he did so.

“Loki, stop this. You’re wasted, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

Loki gazed up at him, confusion evident on his face. “Don’t you want me? You can do whatever you like to me, I won’t mind. Do you want to hurt me?” He rolled onto his stomach, raising his hips, ass pushed seductively upwards. “You can, if you want to. Be as rough as you like, I’ll take it, I promise.”

Tony stared at him in horror. What unholy force could have reduced his proud, arrogant Loki to this?

Loki sat up and held his arms out pleadingly to Tony. “Do it, Anthony, screw me until I forget everything, until I know nothing else. Please.”

Tony sat down on the bed next to Loki and took him by the shoulders, looking him square in the face.

“You. Are. Drunk! You are not thinking straight, and no matter how much you think you want this, there is no way I am doing any of... that... with you in this state.”

Loki was staring at him open-mouthed, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. And then, before Tony’s eyes, his expression changed, from one of hurt to one of anger. He drew himself up far enough to be able to look down his nose at Tony. The effect would have been impressive had he not been leaning to one side as if about to fall over.

“You dare to refuse me, mortal? You have no comp... comprehe... you have no idea who you are dealing with. I am Loki, God of Chaos, and anyone who disobeys me will feel my...” Loki stopped, eyes widening slightly, face turning a rather interesting shade of green. “Uh... where is your..?”

Tony pointed towards his private bathroom. Loki darted off the bed and disappeared, and Tony could hear him retching from behind the bathroom door.

Sighing, Tony put his head in his hands. _Fuck me, please, let me feel you inside me._ And oh God, how he’d wanted to! How many times had he lain in this very bed, stroking himself to blissful completion, imagining Loki on his knees before him, saying those exact words? There was an opportunity he’d never be offered again.

He’s drunk, he reminded himself firmly, it would have been taking advantage, no matter how much he asked for it. You may be an asshole, Tony Stark, but you’re not that much of an asshole.

He heard the bathroom door open and Loki tottered back in, leaning on the doorframe for support. He looked completely washed out, and was shivering more than ever.

Abandoning the idea of getting him to take a shower, Tony stood up and pulled back the bedclothes, indicating that Loki should lie down. Loki complied without comment, sinking gratefully into the sheets, dark hair spread across the pillow. Tony pulled the covers over him, tucking them around Loki’s body to ensure that he would be as warm as possible. “There. Sleep now, you’ll feel better in the morning.”

He picked up Loki’s discarded clothes and went to put them in the hamper in the bathroom. By the time he returned, Loki was asleep.

Tony couldn’t resist reaching down and brushing a stray lock of hair off of his pale cheek. Loki stirred and made a little noise, a sound of quiet contentment. He smiled to himself, before leaving Loki to sleep.

He thought he heard a soft voice whisper “Goodnight, Mother,” as he closed the door, but he couldn’t be sure.

Tony went straight to the bar and poured himself a triple. He needed it. Then he threw himself down on the couch, exhaling deeply. This was not how he had expected his evening to turn out.

His eyes settled on his cell phone, which he had tossed onto the coffee table when he came in. For a moment he debated simply leaving it there, it would make things a whole lot easier for him, but he knew that wasn’t really an option. He had to let him know, if only to save himself the trouble of having to explain later. He picked up the phone and dialled.

He could hear a clunking sound, some muffled swearing, and a deep voice muttering “Blasted thing, how does it..?” Some more swearing, and then, “Hello?”

“Still having trouble figuring out the cell phone, huh?”

“It is a very useful invention, Anthony, but why must you mortals make your technology so damn complicated?”

“I only gave you a basic model, how complicated could it be?”

“As good as it is to hear from you, Anthony, if you have called simply to find out if I know how to use this accursed thing I should point out that I have better things to do.”

Tony chuckled. “There’s no point in you having it if you don’t know how it works. Besides, that’s not the reason I called. I thought I should let you know that your brother is here.”

“Loki is with you? What has happened? Is he hurt?”

“Calm down, Blondie, he’s fine.”

“Anthony, if something is wrong you must tell me.”

“Why would you assume there was anything wrong?”

“Loki has only ever called at the Tower at my insistence, he has never come of his own accord. If he has come to you voluntarily there must be something wrong.”

Damn, Tony had walked right into that one.

He hadn’t planned on saying too much, it would have felt like tattling, but there was no way he was going to convince Thor that Loki had simply shown up on his doorstep asking to borrow a cup of sugar. Besides, now that he had the older brother on the phone he decided that he could really use some support here.

“Well, actually, I found him in a bar down the street. He’d had a few too many so I thought it best to bring him back here.”

“What did he do this time?” Then, when Tony didn’t respond, “Loki has never been one for drinking. While the rest of us would carouse the night away, he always preferred to retire to his chambers to read, but sometimes I would manage to persuade him to stay and celebrate with us, and whenever he drank enough to go to his head he usually ended up doing something monumentally stupid. You heard about the thing with the goat, right?”

“Goat?”

“He... well, I can’t really explain now, Jane is here, and it is certainly not a conversation to be had in the presence of a lady.” Tony could hear Jane in the background insisting that, lady be damned, now she had to know what happened with Loki and the goat.

“Well, no goats were involved this evening, I assure you.”

“So what did happen?”

“Nothing much really. He was with a couple of shady looking guys, but they disappeared pretty quickly after I had a few polite words with them. He threw up a couple times. And...”

“Anthony...” There was a warning in Thor’s voice.

Tony sighed. “He... well, he was having trouble getting undressed, so I gave him a hand, and then... well, he sorta propositioned me.”

“What?” Thor really wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, was he?

“To put it bluntly, he asked me to screw him.”

Tony could hear a noise that sounded like an angry bear, and it took him a few seconds to realise that it was coming from Thor. “Nothing happened,” he said quickly. “I told him no, and then he threw up again and kinda forgot about it. I wasn’t going to take advantage of the guy like that.”

“And the other men, the ones he was at the bar with?”

“Like I said, I got rid of them pretty fast once it became clear what their intentions were.”

Thor’s sigh was one of both relief and sorrow. “Thank you, friend Anthony. Your kindness toward my errant brother is much appreciated, and I apologise to you for his actions. I shall return to New York as soon as possible and try to sort this out. His behaviour has become more and more self-destructive of late, and I fear if it is not nipped in the bud now he may fall too far to be able to get up again.”

“Hey, it’s ok, you don’t have to apologise for him. Look, you don’t have to rush back right away. You stay with Jane, I’ll deal with Loki.”

“You?”

“You don’t have to say it like that!”

“I just meant... I appreciate your help, Anthony, and I thank you for your offer. But Loki is my brother, it is my responsibility to see to his welfare, and you should not have to put yourself out for...”

“That’s exactly the reason I think you should sit this one out,” Tony interrupted. “Look, no one’s denying that you want what’s best for Loki, but like you said, he’s in self-destruct mode right now, you’re not going to get anywhere by giving him another lecture. He needs a different approach. I don’t want to offend you here, but you’re too soft on him. He’s your brother, you look at him and see the little kid you used to play hide-and-seek with, or let’s-go-hunt-wild-man-eating-beasts, or whatever games Asgardian kids play. I see a grown man who is going to end up in serious trouble unless he can get a handle on himself, and I honestly think that I might be in a better position to help with that.”

“And how do you think you might accomplish this?”

“I don’t know yet,” Tony admitted, “But I can be pretty persuasive, I’m certain I can find a way to get through to him, if you’ll allow me the time to do it. I know that no one loves him more than you do, but I have to admit I’ve grown pretty fond of the guy...” _Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Tone,_ “...and I want to help him just as much as you do.” There was a long pause. “If it helps to make up your mind, I could always go with the theory that, since he kinda threw himself at me, I got a right to ensure that he doesn’t do it again.”

There was a rueful chuckle from the other end of the line. “You’re so like my brother, sometimes it’s rather frightening. Very well, Stark, I shall give you three days. If, by then, you have made no progress with him, I shall return and deal with him myself, is that understood?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good. And thank you again, Anthony. It sets my mind at rest to know that Loki has a friend in you.”

You probably wouldn’t be saying that if you knew what I was thinking about ten minutes ago, Tony thought to himself as he hung up the phone.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning found Tony going over some paperwork. Most people would have found the task exceedingly boring, but he didn’t mind it too much, especially when it involved looking over the numbers. Stark Tech had made several million in the first quarter alone, although much of that had been wrenched back by the taxman. He had once made a sorta-half-flippant remark about exploiting a legal loophole to avoid paying up, which had earned him a twenty minute lecture from Steve about doing the right thing and the importance of giving something back to his country. Tony personally thought that saving large chunks of said country on numerous occasions counted as ‘giving something back’, but he had promised not to dodge his taxes, if only to get Steve to stop talking.

_Sir, Mr Laufeyson is awake. You asked me to let you know._

“Thanks, JARVIS,”

_He seems a little worse for wear. I think a couple of aspirin may be required._

“I’ll do that.”

_He’s making some very interesting noises, sir, I’m not sure that the modifications you made to the lavatories will be enough to cope._

“Is the word ‘compassion’ in your virtual dictionary, JARVIS? You might like to try it some time.”

_Might I remind you, sir, that you programmed me to be intelligent, not emotional._

“Yes, I think that may have been an oversight on my part.”

Tony went to his bedroom and put his head around the door. “Morning, sunshine. How’re you feeling?”

From somewhere beneath the covers came a muffled groan.

“Not too good, huh?” He crossed to the bed and pulled the covers down a little. Loki’s grey, ashen face appeared. The green eyes were blinking sleepily, but at least they had lost the glazed look of the night before.

Tony snapped his fingers, and the curtains that covered one whole side of the room opened. The huge window afforded a spectacular view over half the city. It also happened to face east, which meant that the mid-morning sun streamed directly through the glass. Loki let out a startled yelp and scrambled back underneath the bedclothes.

Tony couldn’t help but laugh. “Come on, Dracula, up and at ‘em.”

He went into the bathroom, grabbed a couple of aspirin from the cabinet above the marble sink and filled a glass with water. He carried them back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. “Here, take these, they’ll make you feel a little more human.”

The words slipped out before he thought about them, and he cursed himself silently when he realised what he’d said. Being made human, or as close to it as possible, was what had gotten Loki into this state.

Loki slowly emerged from under the blanket, eyes still half closed. He slowly scanned the room, clearly trying to remember where he was and how he had got there. His eyes came to rest on Tony. “Hello...” he ventured uncertainly.

Tony grinned. “Hello’s good enough.” He held out the water and aspirin. “Take these, it’ll help with the headache.” Luckily Loki seemed to have missed his ‘human’ comment.

Loki swallowed the pills and drank all of the water, wordlessly handing the glass back to Tony, then put his head in his hands.

“Gonna throw up again?” Tony asked.

Loki shook his head and looked up at him apprehensively. “Did I... did I do anything I shouldn’t have?”

Oh boy.

“Do you remember anything about last night?”

“I remember... I was talking to two men, they were really nice... can’t remember what they looked like... and then they left and you came in and... you drank my Scotch.” He narrowed his eyes accusingly. “Then we walked back here, and...” He trailed off, shaking his head.

“Nothing after that?”

“No.” Loki’s eyes widened. “Why? What did I do?” So even Loki didn’t trust himself to behave.

“Oh, not much,” Tony replied nonchalantly. “You followed me to my bedroom, got tangled in your shirt, then you pulled me on top of you and begged me to screw you into the mattress. You know, just the usual stuff.”

There was a look of absolute horror on Loki’s face. “Oh gods, please tell me you’re joking.”

“Fraid not, old man. You were pretty insistent, I barely got away with my honour intact.”

Loki flopped onto his back and laid a hand over his eyes. “Bloody hell. Stark... what can I say? I’m sorry, I... I was having a bad day and I needed a drink. I guess I must have overdone it. I’m so sorry to have behaved in such a manner. I... I’ll go.”

He’s really losing it, Tony thought. The old Loki would never have apologised so humbly.

Loki pushed the sheets aside and made to stand up. He swung his legs off the side of the bed, looked down, and yanked the covers back up over his lap, face flushed with embarrassment. “We didn’t, did we?” he asked.

Tony smiled. “Don’t worry, Sleeping Beauty, I didn’t ravish you while you were unconscious, if that’s what you’re worried about. You were having trouble getting undressed so I gave you a hand. You puked some more, then passed out. In my bed, I might add. I had to sleep in one of the guest rooms. I’ve slummed it before, but seriously? Only a fifty inch TV screen? I may as well have slept in a cave.”

“I’m such a fool,” Loki berated himself softly.

“I... can’t exactly argue with that.”

“You’re not going to tell Thor, are you?”

The night before, Tony had felt somewhat guilty about his call to Loki’s adoptive brother, but, having lain awake half the night, his mind running over every possible scenario that could have occurred had he not happened to walk into that particular bar—Loki mauled and bleeding in a filthy bathroom stall, or stumbling out in front of an oncoming car—that today he found himself in no mood to be apologetic.

“He already knows. I called him last night.”

“What? Why would you do that?”

“Because he’s your brother, and despite what you may think, he has your best interests at heart. What else should I have done? Given you a bed for the night and then sent you out of the door with a change of clothes and ten bucks in your pocket so you could go out and get wasted again tonight? It’d certainly save me a lot of hassle. Unfortunately I am in possession of this pesky thing called a conscience, and no matter how much easier it would be for me to wave you off and never mention this again, the damn thing just wouldn’t let me do it. So yeah, I called Thor, and I told him everything. I think the guy who’s job it is to keep you safe has a right to know when you’re putting yourself in danger.”

Loki had the look of a man facing his impending doom. “He’s going to be so mad. Do you think I’ll have time to write my will before he gets here?”

“Well, actually, he’s not coming. Not right away, anyway. I said we’d sort it out between the two of us.”

Loki’s face was a picture of suspicion. “...Sort it out how?”

Tony still hadn’t thought of that yet, but he wasn’t going to say as much to Loki. “Why don’t you go take a shower and freshen up? We’ll deal with it when you’re a little more awake.”

Tony chivvied him out of bed and gave him a gentle shove in the direction of the bathroom. He could hear the water running as he went to the wardrobe and dug out a pair of grey sweatpants, a t-shirt and some socks, which he left on the bed. Then he called through the bathroom door, “Help yourself to coffee, and there’s plenty of food in the fridge if you’re hungry, although if you’re still feeling queasy you might want to stick to toast or something. I’ve got some paperwork to finish up, shouldn’t take too long, I’ll be with you when I’m done.”

As it turned out, it took Tony another three hours to complete his paperwork, including settling a dispute with a supplier who was suddenly demanding that he pay three times more for the materials they were selling him.

“Inflation, and all that. You know how it is,” the smug sounding woman had said when he called.

“No, it’s OK, I understand. Of course, there’s the small matter of what your company gets in return for supplying to me--secure contract, a respected client who will recommend you to other companies, plus the added bonus of getting to tell everyone that you supply gear to Iron Man. A lot of companies out there, struggling to make ends meet, I’m sure any one of ‘em would jump at the chance for that kind of publicity. You know how it is,” he added.

There was nothing like a little corporate blackmail to put him in a good mood, and Tony went upstairs feeling far more prepared to deal with his unexpected house guest.

His resolve faltered when he found Loki in the common room. The ex-god was sitting on a couch reading one of Tony’s books, his long legs curled up underneath him. His black hair was clean and combed, and hung sleek down his neck. His skin, though still pale, had lost the unhealthy grey tinge. The sweatpants that Tony had left out for him were too short, and showed a good few inches of ankle where they rode up his legs. He looked almost serene in his stillness, as if the night before had never happened.

Tony stood in the doorway he wasn’t sure how long, unwilling to disturb him from his reading. He had to talk to the guy, he’d promised Thor that he would at least try, but he couldn’t take his eyes off him. The sunlight through the window lent him a sort of radiance, an unearthly beauty. If there was any indication that he was not of this world, this was it.

After what seemed like hours, and with a huge amount of willpower, Tony stepped forward and cleared his throat.

Loki looked up, startled. “Stark... Anthony...” He held up the book. “I hope you don’t mind, I could find nothing else to do, and I’m afraid to say your imaginary friend is not much company.”

“My imaginary..?” Tony followed Loki’s gaze up to the ceiling. “Ah. Take a hike, JARVIS.”

_Sir?_

“Privacy, please?”

_Is that wise, sir?_

“Of course. Why wouldn’t ..?” Did JARVIS really think that Loki was going to be able to do him any harm without his magic? Or... Was it possible that the AI had noticed his behaviour around Loki and had somehow put two and two together? “I’m sure we’ll be fine, JARVIS.”

_Very well, Sir._

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Do you want any more coffee?” Tony asked, finding his tongue first.

“No, thank you, I’ve had plenty.”

Loki was watching him warily, and Tony decided that there was no point in putting off his self-imposed duty. He strolled over to the bar, grabbed his own cup of coffee from the machine there, and took it back to where Loki sat. Instead of sitting, he stood behind the couch opposite the pale god, leaning on the back of it with one hand and holding his mug with the other.

“So... last night?”

Loki closed his eyes and shook his head. “Anthony... I have already apologised for my actions towards you last night, and can only do so again in the most sincere...”

Tony held up a hand. “Enough of the spiel, Silvertongue. Just what exactly are you playing at?”

Loki narrowed his eyes, annoyed that he had been rumbled in his attempt to get out of a lecture from Tony. He was clearly sober now, at least. “I don’t follow.”

“What were you doing at that bar?”

“Directing a light opera, what did it look like?”

“Well, since you ask, it looked to me like you were doing your best to get drunk out of your skull.”

“So what if I was? It’s of no concern to you.”

“Oh, I beg to differ. See, quite apart from the fact that you ended the night wrapped around me like a sex-crazed octopus, putting me in a very awkward position, you are also the brother of a good friend of mine. What kind of a friend would I be if I allowed his little bro to come to any harm? I also have a duty to you, as an occasional guest in my house, to make sure that you don’t put yourself in harm’s way.”

“You sound just like Thor. I’m not a child, Stark.”

“I know. And that’s why you need to start taking some responsibility and sort yourself out. Stop looking for an answer to your problems in the bottom of a glass, you won’t find any there, believe me, I know.”

“Ah, yes, I remember you telling me about your little alcoholic episode. You certainly speak from the moral high ground.”

“In my defence I was kinda dying at the time. The point is I realised what I was doing and got my shit together before I did something really stupid, and it’s about time you did the same.”

“Why should I? It’s entirely my own business if I want to go out and drink myself into a stupor, it’s the one thing that let’s me forget that I’m stuck in this hellhole for the rest of eternity.”

“And is this really how you want to spend that eternity? Either drunk or hungover, waking up in a different bed every morning wondering how you got there? I imagine it would get pretty boring after the first couple of decades.”

“Why do you even care? What makes you so concerned with my welfare, anyway?”

“Your brother’s pretty concerned.”

“My brother,” Loki spat the word, “is a sentimental fool. He actually thinks he’s done me a favour by having me banished here. He should have left me in the dungeon. At least there I still had my magic.”

Tony felt his annoyance growing and forced it back down. “From what I heard you were on the verge of a mental breakdown. You know, here on Earth we have this little thing called 'gratitude'. You might want to start showing some.”

“And I should show you gratitude, I suppose, for being so _noble_ last night?”

“Absolutely not. Sleeping with you when you were that drunk would have been wrong, no matter how much you asked for it. I wouldn’t expect you to be grateful because I happen to have a moral compass.” Tony felt rather pleased with the look of surprise that crossed Loki’s face. “What, you think I expected you to thank me for not taking advantage of you? I know I play up to that whole ‘millionaire playboy’ image but I’m not a total dick.”

Loki’s expression hovered somewhere between curiosity and confusion. He looked as if he was debating what he wanted to say. Whatever it was, he clearly couldn’t bring himself to say it. Instead he resorted to scowling at Tony. “I still don’t see why it’s any of your business,” he muttered petulantly.

Tony sighed inwardly. He hadn’t expected this little talk to be easy, but it was proving far more difficult than he had anticipated. No wonder Thor hadn’t gotten anywhere, with Loki putting up barriers like this.

“Last night,” he said slowly, “you asked me if I thought you were a bad person.” Loki’s eyebrows raised, he obviously didn’t remember that either. “I’ll tell you now what I told you then. You lived here for nearly half a year, and a few times on and off since then. And in all that time, I never saw any indication that you are a bad person. Misguided, angry—understandably, in my opinion; I mean, if my dad had waited so long to tell me I wasn’t who I thought I was I’d be pretty pissed off too—depressed, lost, but not bad. I saw someone who needed help, and I tried to do that. Not because I had any obligation to, because I wanted to. Because I think you can be more than just a lost cause, if given the opportunity.”

And because you’re insanely hot and I think I may be in love with you, he added mentally.

Loki stayed irritatingly silent, and Tony felt a stab of frustration. What did it take to get through to him?

“Did you ever stop to think what might happen to you when you get that drunk?“ he asked, his voice raising. “You had no idea what you were doing last night. You practically threw yourself at me. What if I had decided to take you up on your offer?”

“You didn’t, though.” Loki answered back.

“And what if it hadn’t been me? What if someone else had picked you up in that bar instead? Remember those two guys, the ones you thought were so nice? They were going to take you into the bathroom, fuck you dry and leave you there. I couldn’t blame you if it were against your will, but the way you were behaving, something tells me you would have agreed to the whole thing if they’d asked you. Well, am I right?”

Loki didn’t answer, but the sullen expression had left his face, to be replaced with... was that shame? Tony noticed that he didn’t deny his assertion that he would have consented to sex with those two ugly bastards.

“Or what if you’d gone home with some stranger?” he continued. “Who knows where you could have woken up this morning? A crack house? Some psycho’s basement? You could be hooking up with a complete nutcase and you would be too wasted to notice.”

“I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself,” Loki muttered, sounding completely unconvinced.

“And then there’s all the other dangers,” Tony went on, aware that he was almost shouting and not caring. “You’re risking sexually transmitted diseases, alcohol poisoning... hell, you could be arrested if you came on to the wrong person! You’re letting yourself in for a world of hurt and you don’t even seem to care!”

“And you do?” There was anger in Loki’s voice, and something else that sounded almost like desperation. “Don’t bother playing the hero with me, Stark. If it weren’t for my brother you wouldn’t give a damn about me, we both know it, so you can stop pretending that you want to be my friend.”

Tony wrung his hands, sloshing coffee out of his mug. “Aaah, you are so fucking frustrating! I don’t know how Thor puts up with you. I swear to God, if you were my brother I would have put you over my knee and smacked some sense into you a long time ago. In fact...” A light bulb went on in Tony’s head, “I think that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

He rounded the couch, put his mug on the table, and sat down, looking expectantly at Loki.

Loki looked back at him with his mouth open. “... What?”

“You heard.” Tony patted his thigh. “I’ve told Thor he’s been too soft with you. I think it’s time someone took a more proactive approach.”

“I... I don’t understand. You said I wasn’t bad, and now you want to... punish me?”

Tony shook his head. “I don’t want to punish you, Loki. I want to make you understand that, much as you may not believe it, I really do care about you... about what happens to you,” he corrected, hoping that Loki wouldn’t notice the slip. “You’re putting yourself in danger, and if it doesn’t stop you’re going to end up doing something you regret, if you haven’t already. Talking is getting us nowhere, so I have no choice but to try something different.”

“But like this? I already told you I’m not a child...”

“Of course not, I wouldn’t even be considering this if you were. I don’t believe in spanking children. Grown men... gods... whatever... are an entirely different matter.”

“You bloody hypocrite. Your morals wouldn’t allow you to touch me while I was drunk, yet now I’m sober you think to... to force me to accept chastisement like some errant little boy?”

“Hey, you’re not exactly in a position to be calling me names. And you misunderstand me. I’m not going to force you to do anything, Loki. I can’t make you change if you don’t want to. Only you can do that.” Tony cringed inwardly at the cliché. He sounded like a self-help book.

“And you think that punishing me will change me, do you?“

“I told you, I’m not doing it to punish you. But yes, I think it might.”

Loki stood up, knocking his book off of the couch. “This is insane. I’m leaving.”

“No problem,” Tony replied breezily. “Of course, your brother might not be too happy when he finds out that you walked out.”

Loki glared at him. “Going to tell on me again?”

“I won’t have to. He only gave me three days to try and help you out of this rut. He’ll be on his way back here on Tuesday whether I tell him or not.”

For a moment Loki seemed to waver, but his stubborn streak won out. “Well, he’ll have to come and find me himself then, won’t he?” He turned to leave.

He made it halfway to the door when he stopped and looked curiously back at Tony, who had not moved from the couch where he sat. “You’re not going to try to stop me? Thor would be storming after me by now.”

“Tony shrugged. “You’re not a prisoner, Loki. It’s your choice. You can either stick around and deal with this my way, or you can skip off on your merry way and see where it leads you. I think we both know where that will be. If you want to go I’m not going to prevent you. I’m just sorry I couldn’t help you.”

“How exactly do you think that... _that_ is going to help me?”

“By making you realise that your actions have consequences. This time they get you a spanking, next time they could get you beaten up, or arrested, or killed. I don’t want that to happen. I meant it when I said I care about what happens to you, and not just for your brother’s sake. You can do better than this, Loki, you can be more, I’ve seen it in you. But you’ve dug yourself so deep into a pit of your own misery that it’s become easier for you to carry on drowning in the mud at the bottom than to try and climb back out. I can throw you a rope, but it’s up to you to use it. So you make the choice; you can leave, and wait until you get an infection or find your picture all over the internet, or you can stay and we can work through this safely, with no danger to anything but your pride. Who knows? A little pain now may spare you a lot later.”

His speech finished, Tony sat back and waited.

Loki, who had been listening in silence, his face unreadable, turned abruptly away. Tony’s heart sank. Instead of walking away, however, Loki remained where he was, standing with his back to the engineer.

Tony waited.

Loki’s voice, when he finally spoke, was so quiet that Tony could barely hear it. “You really think it might help me?”

“Yes, I do.”

There was a long silence. Then, to Tony’s amazement, Loki nodded. “Alright.”

“You sure?”

Loki turned back to him. He looked on the verge of tears. “I hate being like this. I hate feeling terrible all the time. I get drunk and forget about it for a while, but then I wake up and nothing’s changed and I feel worse than ever. I just want to let it all go. I want just one morning where I wake up and don’t feel disappointed that I’m still here. I... I don’t want to do this any more.”

Every fibre of Tony’s being was yelling at him to get up and wrap his arms around the ex-god, to hold him close and tell him that it would be OK, and it took all of his willpower to fight it. Having managed to persuade Loki to stay, he did not want to risk frightening him off. Instead he nodded and gave him an encouraging smile. “Good. That’s good, Loki.”

For a few more moments Loki stood, unsure, then he took a deep breath, walked across to the couch where Tony sat and stopped in front of him. His hands were shaking, Tony noticed.

“How...” He swallowed nervously. “H... how do you want to... do this?”

Tony considered. “I think it’s easiest if you lie down on the couch, across my lap.” It was probably the most comfortable position for Loki, and far less humiliating than being bent fully over Tony's knee.

Loki nodded slowly, but did not move, frozen with nerves. Tony held out a hand, which Loki gratefully took, and pulled him gently onto the couch, guiding him down to lie across his thighs. Loki instantly grabbed one of the cushions that Tony had shoved carelessly to the end of the couch (Tony wasn’t even sure why he had cushions, no one ever used the damn things) and wrapped his arms around it, pressing his cheek into the squashy padding. He was trembling.

The sight of the delicious curve of Loki’s ass raised up on his lap, encased in the soft grey fabric of the borrowed sweatpants, made Tony’s cock twitch into life again. Shit! Why did the guy have to be so damn sexy? Tony cast his mind around for something, anything, that would dampen his arousal. He was worried that he wouldn’t be able to think of anything un-sexy enough when an image popped, unbidden, into his head; an image of Loki in that dark, filthy restroom, his face buried in that short, ugly man’s crotch...

Tony thought he might throw up himself, but at least the image served to cool his ardour, thank God! He was never going to come off as a credible disciplinarian with his erection pressing against Loki’s hip.

The pale god was as tense as a bow string across his knee, Tony could feel him quivering. He stretched out his arm and began to rub Loki’s back in what he hoped was a soothing manner. “It’s OK,“ he reassured. “I know it’s scary, but you’re gonna have to trust me here. I’m not going to humiliate you, I’m not going to touch you inappropriately, and I’m not going to use anything other than my hand, you have my word on that. So, you ready to start?”

Loki shook his head.

“You want to give it a moment?”

Loki shook his head again. “Just get it over with,” he whispered.

“Ok.” Keeping one hand on Loki’s back, Tony raised the other hand and brought it down sharply on his bottom. Loki yelped and dug his fingers into the cushion he was holding. Tony smacked him again, and again...

Loki took the blows surprisingly stoically. The shock seemed to wear off after the first few slaps and he managed to remain silent as Tony applied his hand methodically to his backside, clinging to his cushion as if it anchored him somehow. His body was still unbearably tense though, and after about a dozen swats Tony paused, resting his hand on Loki’s ass and resisting the urge to give it a squeeze.

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but try to relax a little if you can. The more tense you are, the more it’ll hurt.” And it must have hurt; Tony intended it to. He had spanked guys on a couple of occasions, but those had been as a precursor to sex, titillating and playful. This was nothing like that, and although the spanking was not intended to be a punishment, Tony was going to make damn sure that Loki felt it.

His fingers shifted slightly against Loki’s rear. The sweatpants were made of some thick, fleecy material, designed to keep the wearer warm when out running in cold weather, Tony supposed, and although they outlined the contours of the god’s ass beautifully, they also provided a fair amount of padding, absorbing much of the energy from the blows. That wouldn’t do.

“Sorry, Prancer,” he murmured apologetically, “But these are going to have to come down.”

Tony slid his fingers under the waistband and gently tugged the sweatpants down, baring the pale cheeks, which were already turning slightly pink. Loki whimpered into his cushion as his bottom was exposed, and Tony gave his back another reassuring little rub. “It’s alright ba... buddy,” (Shit, he’d almost called him ‘babe’) “You’re going to be alright. Just go with it, I’ve got you, Ok?”

The slaps sounded much louder on bare flesh, and Tony watched with something akin to fascination as Loki’s backside turned from white to pink, and then to red, the marks of his fingers standing out livid against the pale skin. Loki’s hips jerked as each smack landed, buttocks clenching as he instinctively shied away from the engineer’s hand, and Tony had to remind him several times not to tense up.

He continued to smack the reddened cheeks, upping the speed and severity of the swats, until he heard Loki utter a soft “Ow,“ and stopped.

“You OK?”

Loki let out a long exhale. “Can we stop now?” he asked quietly. His voice sounded strained, and Tony realised how much Loki had been struggling to keep from crying out.

Tony almost relented, but he remembered the image of Loki in the bar’s restroom and hardened his heart. “’Fraid not, bud, not yet.”

“Please?”

“Loki, this isn’t a game,” Tony explained. “If we were just playing I would stop whenever you asked me to. But we’re not playing. You need this, and since your judgement obviously can’t be trusted, I will decide when I think you’ve had enough. You’re going to have to trust me on this, Ok?”

Loki made a sulky little noise, and buried his face in the cushion.

Tony realised that he had unconsciously been rubbing Loki’s bottom the whole time he had been talking, providing relief without realising it. He wondered if he should stop, but Loki made no comment about it, so he carried on. The skin felt warm to the touch, and it was only going to get warmer.

“You don’t have to stay quiet, you know,” he told the back of Loki’s head. “If you want to talk, or yell, or curse, go ahead.”

Loki shook his head, and Tony thought he heard him mutter, “Weak.”

“It’s not weakness to let someone know when you’re hurting, Loki. Perhaps if you’d done that a while ago you could’ve avoided this whole mess.”

Loki snorted. “Oh yes, that would have worked spectacularly well. ‘Father, I feel so terribly sad.’ ‘Oh, man up Loki, for My sake!’"

Tony chuckled. So, even ass-up over his lap, Loki was capable of sarcasm (although he seriously doubted that Odin had ever used the phrase ‘man up’). He couldn’t help but notice the sentiment behind it, though.

“You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. Not Odin, not Thor, certainly not me. You’re not going to lose any respect by letting it out, so don’t feel like you have to keep silent, Ok?”

Loki snorted again.

Stubborn little brat, aren’t you? thought Tony fondly, as he planted another smack, harder this time, on Loki’s upturned rear. Loki’s hips jumped again.

Determined that he was not going to allow Loki to slip back into his well of self-pity, Tony spanked him in earnest, the slaps sounding impossibly loud in the empty room. Loki, unable to keep still any more, was squirming across his lap in an effort to escape the stinging blows. Tony wrapped his arm around his waist to hold him steady, then, sliding the sweatpants further down Loki’s thighs, landed a ringing smack on the lower curve of his ass. Loki let out a low moan. Tony slapped the back of his thigh. Loki moaned again.

Tony’s palm was beginning to sting as he covered every inch of the red, sore-looking bottom with hard, painful swats. Loki’s breath came in whimpers and gasps and he was wriggling harder than ever.

“Hurts, huh? Hurt more than getting beat up in some back alley, or walking out in front of a truck?” Tony didn’t pause this time, he continued spanking Loki even as he spoke. “Talk to me, Loki. What’s an intelligent guy like you doing putting himself at risk for the sake of a few drinks? Is a few hours of drunken oblivion worth more than your own safety?”

A particularly hard slap to the delicate spot where the buttock curved into the thigh, and Loki’s head came up as a full-throated yell escaped his lips. Another blow to the same spot drew forth another cry. He was kicking and writhing fiercely now, but, although Tony held him more firmly, to the engineer’s surprise he made no real attempt to escape his grip.

“You want this to stop, you’re gonna have to talk to me.”

Smack. Loki cried out again.

“What you’re doing, it goes way beyond simply wanting to get drunk, doesn’t it?”

Smack.

“So what’s going on, Loki? Are you trying to hurt yourself?”

Smack.

“Is this some way of getting back at your brother, making him feel guilty?” Tony’s hand rose and fell with merciless regularity, Loki howling with pain at each stroke.

“Or do you like being hit on by drunken creeps in seedy bars?”

Smack.

“Huh? You like being screwed in dirty bathrooms and anonymous bedrooms?”

Loki’s whole body stiffened suddenly, in spite of the blows, his shoulders hunched as if trying to shrink into himself.

Tony’s stomach turned. “That’s it, isn’t it?” he asked incredulously. “It’s not the booze, you’re going out looking for... what, a ten minute fuck with the first person you find? For God’s sake, Loki... what the fuck are you playing at?”

Loki rested his forehead on his cushion, hair falling across his face. “I told you, it’s none of your business,” he muttered, voice hoarse from yelling.

Tony almost laughed. “After all this, you’re still fighting me? You’re not doing yourself any favours, you know.”

“I don’t care.”

“And why not? When did you stop caring about yourself, Loki?”

There was a defiant little “Hmph,” from somewhere deep in the cushion.

Tony shrugged, and lifted his hand. “Fair enough.”

He hadn’t thought it was possible to smack Loki any harder than he already had been, but he managed it. Tony put his whole arm into the spanking, barely leaving a second between slaps as Loki kicked and squirmed and screamed into the cushion.

“You getting tired of this yet?” Tony asked cheerfully, hand moving like a metronome, “‘Cos I can keep this up all afternoon.”

“Let me go!” Loki yelled, struggling furiously. “You can’t... Aah!.. You can’t do this to me! Ow!”

“You came into this willingly, Loki, you wanted help. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”

“Aah! Fuck you, Stark!”

“You suggested that last night, I said no. What I want to know now is, what made you ask me?”

“Ow! It fucking _hurts!_ ”

“I’m sure it does. Come on, Loki, tell me. Why were you begging for me to screw you last night? Tell me.”

“No! _Ow!_ Stop it!”

“Not until you tell me. What makes you do it, huh? What the fuck would have compelled you to go into that restroom with those two fucking gargoyles last night? What makes you so desperate that you’d stoop to that level? Come on, tell me!”

 _“Because no one else would have me!”_ Loki wailed, his body going limp over Tony’s lap as he finally gave up fighting.

Tony froze, arm raised to deliver another slap. Slowly, he brought his hand down to rest on Loki’s rear, rubbing comforting little circles into the stinging flesh. “Explain,” he said quietly.

“No one else wants me,” Loki whispered. He sounded as though he might cry. “Father... Odin, he... he couldn’t wait to be rid of me, he would have had me killed in a heartbeat if Mother hadn’t... I was never more than a tool to him, one little piece of the puzzle that made up his big picture, his grand strategy... when that didn’t work he wanted nothing more to do with me. The Jotuns didn’t want me... Laufey, my real father... he left me to die... mere days after my birth, and he’d already decided that I wasn’t good enough for them. I had no friends on Asgard... I was too different... not big enough, not strong enough... nothing going for me except my magic... and now I don’t even have that. I have nothing... I _am_ nothing.”

Tony nodded, understanding. “So, when you get drunk and some guy shows an interest...”

“I take whatever I can get.” There was shame and bitterness in Loki’s voice. "Even when they do things that make me ashamed... things that hurt... even though they discard me when they’re done... they might not care, but at least they _want_ me... even if it’s only for five minutes.”

Tony sat in silence as he took in what Loki had said, fingers absently tracing little swirls on the scorched skin. You could have ended this a long time ago, he berated himself. You could see he was deteriorating. You should have taken him in hand before he ever got to this point.

Well, yeah, but who would have guessed that you’d have to tan the guy’s ass in order to do that?

“You know that’s all bullshit, right? Whatever else you may be, you’re not _nothing_ , Loki.”

“Yes I am.” There was no argument in Loki’s voice, he simply sounded resigned. “I’m not of Asgard, Jotunheim abandoned me. I’m stuck here on Earth, but I’m not human, and I’ve lost my magic... There’s nothing left, no direction, no purpose... I may as well not exist.”

Tony sighed. One step forward, two steps back. He’d gotten Loki to admit to the source of his problem, but now he was faced with an even bigger one. Loki had had nearly two years to convince himself of his own worthlessness, simply telling him that he was wrong wasn’t going to change his mind.

Tony steeled himself, knowing what he had to ask of the ex-god, and knowing what he would have to do if he did not get the right answer.

“Ok, Loki, you’re doing really well. I know it took a lot for you to tell me all of that. But I need you to do something else for me now, Ok? You might find it hard, but I want you to try. You’re going to repeat after me now—‘I am not nothing.’ Go on, say it.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

“Are you trying to make me feel stupid or something?”

“Of course not. But you’re never going to think it if you can’t even say it. Come on, go for it.”

Loki made a skeptical little noise.

“You don’t have to believe it. You’re the god of lies, right? So lie. At least it’s a start.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Would you just try it?”

“Fine. I’m not nothing. Happy?” Sarcasm dripped from Loki’s voice. Tony decided to ignore it.

“Good. That’s a good start. Say it again.”

“I said it once, what more do you want?”

“I want you to keep repeating it until it sticks. Fair enough?”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s pointless.”

Tony shook his head, resigned. “You really think that?”

“Yep.“

Ok. Tony hadn’t really expected it to be that easy, but he supposed it had been worth a try.

It almost broke his heart to raise his hand again.

The smacks that he delivered to Loki’s bottom were not as hard as before, but they fell on already abused flesh, and within seconds Loki was screaming again. It tore Tony apart to hear him, but he was determined to drag the god out of his despondency, whatever it took.

“’I’m not nothing.’ Say it, Loki.”

Loki shook his head furiously.

“You’re not going anywhere until you say it and I think you mean it. Come on, Loki, you must have had enough by now. Say it.”

“Alright! Alright. I’m not nothing.” Loki’s breath hitched in his throat.

Tony slapped the crest of one reddened cheek. “Good. Again.”

”I... I’m not nothing.”

Smack. “Again.”

“I’m not nothing.” Loki burst into tears.

“You’re doing really well, Loki. Come on, again.”

Smack.

“I’m not nothing...”

Smack.

“ _Aah!_ I’m not nothing...”

Smack.

“I’m not nothing. For the love of Odin, Stark, please..!”

“You’re almost there. Keep going, you can do it.” Tony kept up his tempo as Loki kicked and cried.

“I’m not nothing...”

Smack.

“I’m not... _Ow!_... I’m not nothing...”

Smack.

“I’m not nothing...”

Smack.

“ _Oww!_ I’m not nothing... oh gods....”

Smack.

“I’m not nothing... _Oh fuck please stop, Anthony, no more, please... please..!”_

And finally... finally... Tony stopped.

Gently, he pulled the sweatpants back up, careful not to allow the material to graze the sore, over-sensitive skin. He rested his hand, his palm stinging, on Loki’s hip, fingers stroking soothingly as Loki sobbed, “I’m not nothing... I’m not nothing...” into the cushion.

Tony sat there he didn’t know how long, Loki across his lap, his body wracked with sobs, allowing him to cry out his pain for as long as it took him.

After a while Loki quietened, the whimpers and trembling calmed. He made to get up, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, and Tony put his arms around him to help him, bringing him up to kneel on the couch next to him. Loki’s eyes were red from crying, and strands of hair clung to his tearstained face.

Tony kept his hands on the god’s shoulders, studying his face carefully. Had it worked? Had he, in his effort to save Loki from himself, gone too far?

“Loki?” he whispered.

Loki let out a deep, shuddering breath and slumped against him, laying his head on Tony’s shoulder. Without thinking, Tony put his arms around him and held him close, sheltering, comforting.

“I’m not nothing,” he heard Loki whisper, to himself more than Tony. He sounded almost surprised.

“That’s right.” Tony rested his cheek on the top of Loki’s head. He reached up a hand to stroke the long, dark hair. “You did so well, baby, I’m so proud of you.”

He felt Loki’s arm slip around his waist, clinging to him, quivering. Tony pulled him closer, not wanting to move, happy simply to sit there with Loki in his arms until the end of time...

_Sir, I am sorry to interrupt, but Mr Rhodes is on the line._

Tony started at the sound of JARVIS’s voice. “Fuck. Tell him I’ll call him back.”

_He says that it is urgent that you speak to him now. Apparently there is a glitch in the software of the new armour._

“There’s no glitch, I tested that software myself.”

 _Considering that he is currently travelling out of control over Mexico at approximately nine hundred miles_   _per_ _hour, he begs to differ._

“Dammit!” He looked down at Loki. “I gotta go take care of this. I’ll be right back as soon as I’m done, I promise.” Loki nodded wearily.

It took around twenty minutes for Tony, with JARVIS’s help, to override the software in Rhodey’s suit and bring him down safely. Tony was tempted to go straight to the lab and find out what had caused the malfunction, but he had more pressing matters to attend to.

Not so pressing, as it turned out. When Tony returned, he found Loki curled up on the couch, fast asleep, head resting on his cushion. (Was it bad that he was already thinking of it as ‘Loki’s cushion’? God, he had it bad.) Tony had smacked his ass raw, he must be exhausted to be able to sleep through the pain.

The god really was beautiful, he decided. Asleep, he looked so... innocent. Not a word many people would normally associate with the god of mischief, but it was the only word that could really describe him in this moment...

Well, he wasn’t going to get anything done standing here all day, tempting as it was. Leaving Loki to sleep, he headed to the lab to work on Rhodey’s little software problem.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for Titanic, and possibly The Italian Job (although if you haven’t seen them by now, where the hell have you been?)

Tony’s eyes kept straying back to Loki as he pottered around the lab. He was amazed at how quickly the ex-god had picked up all his tech stuff.

“It’s like magic, in some ways,” Loki had commented, as Tony demonstrated how a simple electrical circuit worked. “Everything has its own force, its own energy. Magic works by imposing your will on that energy and bending it to your whim. This works in a similar way. You take the energy from here...” He pointed at the battery, “...and direct it to where you want it to go.” Loki flicked the switch to close the circuit, and the little light bulb switched on. He grinned happily, a sight that made Tony feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It was a feeling he was getting used to.

 

 

Loki hadn’t moved from the couch that first evening. In fact, he had slept for almost twenty hours. Tony had waited for him to wake up, but as the hour grew late and the god showed no sign of stirring, Tony had laid a blanket over him and left him to sleep.

He had half expected to find him gone the next morning (waking up sore and sober would hardly give him motive to stay, after all) and so Tony had to admit he’d been rather surprised to walk into the common room the next morning to find Loki standing by the window, looking out across the city he had once sought to rule, coffee cup in hand. He had been even more surprised when Loki turned to him and gave him a sheepish little smile.

“Anthony... Good morning... I helped myself to coffee, I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not.” Tony got his own cup of coffee from the machine, then crossed the room to stand next to Loki. “So... did you sleep well?“

“I slept...” Loki looked a little surprised. “I slept. I actually slept the whole night. I didn’t even have any nightmares. It’s been a long time since that’s happened.” He looked down at his coffee. “And this morning I woke up and I felt... normal. Well, mostly.” He shifted his hips uncomfortably, and Tony chuckled.

“Still feeling a little sore, huh?”

Loki’s lips twitched, and his pale cheeks turned rather pink. Was he actually blushing? “A little is not exactly how I would describe it.”

It was Tony’s turn to cast his eyes down towards his coffee cup. “Listen, Loki... I’m sorry if I upset you or embarrassed you in any way yesterday. I know it was a... well, an unconventional way to deal with your issues.”

“It certainly isn’t the first thing I would have thought of.” Loki gave him a sideways look. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that you just wanted to get your hands on my arse.”

Tony laughed the comment off, while trying not to blush himself. In truth, there was nothing he’d like more than to have a chance to enjoy the sweet, rounded pleasures of Loki’s ‘arse’ (he practically melted at the way the guy pronounced the word) but that little fantasy was strictly filed under ‘keep this one to yourself’.

“I’m kinda surprised you’re not pissed off about the whole thing,” he admitted.

“So am I, actually. But... I don’t know... I just woke up feeling so... relieved. I can’t really explain it.”

To be honest, neither could Tony.

That had been almost two weeks ago. Tony had waited for Loki to announce that he was leaving, that he was ready for his independence once more, but so far that hadn’t happened. He had tentatively pointed out that Loki was free to leave whenever he wished, hoping fervently that he wouldn’t take it a sign that he had outstayed his welcome, but Loki had replied that, at least for now, he was happy to stay at the Tower, if that was alright with Tony. Tony had nonchalantly said that whatever he chose to do was fine with him, while mentally jumping for joy at the thought of getting to keep Loki for a while.

Thor had called on the second evening, wanting to know if Tony had made any progress. Tony could hear the doubt in his voice, and he couldn’t help feeling a little smug as he told the blond god that yes, Loki was still at the Tower, yes, he was sober, and that, while he wasn’t turning cartwheels or anything, he seemed happier than he had been for a long time. No need to rush back, everything was under control. The delight in Thor’s voice had made him smile. He didn’t go so far as to explain exactly how he had brought about this change, he wasn’t sure how Thor would react to being told that he had spanked his little brother across his lap until he cried. He decided it was probably best to discuss it in person—with Loki to back him up.

He did explain it to Bruce though, when he called to find out how things were going at S.H.I.E.L.D. Who better than a doctor for a second opinion, right?

There had been a stunned silence at the other end of the phone as Tony finished speaking. He had waited apprehensively for his friend to start bawling him out; to tell him that he was sick, perverted, that what he had done was assault; before Bruce had said, in an awed voice, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Uh... come again?”

“It’s an obvious solution, especially for someone like Loki who won’t be reasoned with.”

“You think it was the right thing to do?”

“Of course. Why, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah... I mean, it worked, I just can’t figure out how.“

“You didn’t think about it before you did it?”

“To be honest, I just saw a guy who needed a good spanking, and since there was no one else available I took it upon myself.”

“It’s obvious,” Bruce repeated. “Loki has been rejected by nearly everyone he has ever known; his biological father, his adoptive father, the people of his realm who saw him as an outcast. He couldn’t be like the warriors he grew up surrounded by, and then he lost his magic, the one thing that put him on an equal footing with them. He feels worthless and inferior, so he drinks to block that out and sleeps around in order to feel some semblance of love and affection, and when he wakes up alone with nothing but a hangover those feelings are exacerbated, and so it begins again. He’s got all this crap going round and round inside his head, a vicious cycle that he can’t stop. When you spanked him, the pain interrupted those negative thoughts and gave him something else to focus on, and that allowed you to implant a new thought, that he is not as worthless as he feels himself to be. Do you understand?”

“Do I..? I thought you were into physics and biochemistry. You never told me you were a psychologist.”

Bruce laughed. “I can still surprise you.”

“So, what now? There’s an improvement, but he’s not better, not yet. How do I make sure he won’t fall into that state again?”

“Well, that depends on whether this is a temporary arrangement, or if you have... long term plans.”

Something in the doctor’s voice made Tony suspicious. “What’re you saying, Bruce?”

“Have you told Loki how you feel about him yet?”

For once, Tony’s gift of the gab failed him. “I... I don’t know what you’re... what makes you think that I...” he spluttered, fully aware that his protests would probably serve only to confirm Bruce’s suspicions.

“I don’t talk as much as you do, Tony, which means I see far more. Your eyes were practically glued to him the entire time he was at the Tower, every time Thor called him back you contrived to be there at the same time. It’s been like watching a bearded schoolgirl with a crush.”

Tony gulped. “Does anyone else know?”

“Natasha figured it out, she thinks you’ve lost your mind. Steve, Thor and Clint are completely oblivious to that kind of thing, so I think you’re safe for now.”

Tony relaxed a little. “So... do you think I should tell him?”

“It’s hard to say... if he feels the same it might encourage him to settle down, or it might freak him out and scare him off. My advice is to just keep doing what you are now—listen when he wants to open up, give him space when he needs it. Above all, let him know that you want him there—just as a friend for now, if you’re not ready to take it further yet. Keep at it and see where it takes you.”

 

 

The problem was, Tony wasn’t sure where it was taking him right now. Loki was getting better every day, he was certain of it. Each morning his smile seemed a little wider, his voice a little brighter, and the dark circles around his eyes were diminishing. And yet, whenever Tony would put a hand on his shoulder, or give him a friendly nudge, or even stand a little too close to him, he would become nervous and jumpy, shrinking away from the engineer as if scared of him. Was he afraid that Tony would spank him again? It was confusing, to say the least, and Tony often found himself wondering if he had, indeed, done the right thing.

He glanced across the lab at Loki, who he had put  work untangling a mass of wires that he had found in a drawer. “Hey,” he said, trying to sound offhand, “You wanna sit up and watch a movie with me tonight? I mean, I know you like to read, but sitting in your room with a book every night’s gotta be getting old by now.”

Loki looked up from his bundle of wires. “Um, sure. Why not?” He smiled, but Tony thought he detected some apprehension in his voice.

Well, at least he didn’t say no.

     

                                                              XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

The Tower had its own movie theatre, but Tony decided that, since it was just the two of them, they would be more comfortable in the common room. He instructed JARVIS to start the movie while he went to the bar and poured two glasses of wine. He offered one to Loki, who sat at the end of the couch with one long leg crossed over the other, leaning on the cushion which he seemed to have adopted as his own. He was sitting far more comfortably that he had done a week ago.

Loki looked from the glass to Tony, surprised. “I can drink?“

“I figure one won’t hurt. That’s all you’re having though.”

Loki took a sip. The way the tip of his tongue darted out to lick the residue from his lips made Tony shudder. He was so busy imagining just what else Loki might do with that tongue that he barely heard the ex-god comment, “Not bad. So, what are we watching?”

Tony pulled himself together. “The Italian job. It’s a classic.” He sat down next to Loki, but not too close. Give him space when he needs it, Bruce had advised.

As it turned out, he’d made a good choice. Loki smiled and laughed throughout the whole movie, particularly at Tony’s awful attempt to impersonate Michael Caine (“Yer only s’posed ta blow the blaady doors awf!”). He wasn’t sure, but he thought that he caught Loki glancing at him every now and then, but he would turn his head quickly back to the screen every time Tony tried to return the look. What the hell was that about?

The running commentary coming from the ceiling didn’t help either.

_That Mini was blue a moment ago._

_Gold weighs 19300 kilos per metre cubed. One man would not be able to move all of that by himself._

_Surely that Work In Progress sign should be written in Italian._

“It’s called ‘suspension of disbelief’, JARVIS. Everyone knows that it doesn’t work like that in real life, but they put that knowledge aside in order to enjoy the movie, which, incidentally, I would like to do right now.”

Loki leaned forward and put his empty glass down on the table as the credits rolled. “Thank you, Anthony, I must confess it has been a most pleasant evening.”

“It has, hasn’t it? Shame it has to end, really.”

“Hmm.” Loki turned his head towards him again. Tony looked back, but this time Loki did not turn away. Instead, he scooted closer, and before the engineer could react Loki’s lips were against his mouth, warm and eager and demanding.

For a moment Tony could do nothing but blink in surprise, before allowing himself to be drawn into the kiss, Loki’s lips parting to allow his tongue to slip into his mouth. One long-fingered hand rested on his thigh, squeezing gently. I’m dreaming, he thought giddily, any moment now I’m going to wake up and this will not be real. It was better than any of his fantasies, better than he could ever have imagined. And it was real. It really was Loki who sat next to him, tongue gliding smoothly across his own, moaning softly at the sheer pleasure of it... he never wanted it to end.

Loki drew back, pulling away, and Tony groaned aloud with loss. For a few moments the bright green eyes stared into his own, before Loki turned away, face flushed. “I’m sorry. I’ve been wanting to do that for days, and I just couldn’t resist it any more. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything... I... I just had to get it out of my system.”

Tony stared at him with his mouth open. Was he really hearing this? “So... is it? Out of your system, I mean?”

Loki seemed to consider this for a minute before turning back to Tony. “To be honest, I don’t think it is.”

Tony could feel his pulse quickening as he replied, “Do you want to try again, just to be sure?”

                                                             

                                                              XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

“Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, we can wait if this is going too fast...”

Loki raised a sardonic eyebrow. “I’m a big boy, Anthony, I’m sure I can handle it.”

“Ok, but tell me if I’m doing anything you don’t like.” With that, Tony pushed Loki backwards onto the bed.

Loki lay propped up on his elbows, watching Tony with anticipation. Tony himself could not take his eyes off the long, slender form stretched across his bed. He had wanted this for so long, convinced that it could never happen, and now he was going to savour every moment of it...

“Anthony, if you’re going to fuck me, you might want to get on with it before I get bored.” The blush on Loki’s face told him that he was anything but bored.

Tony grinned. “No rush, babe, we’ve got all night.”

That being said, he found that he could wait no longer to climb onto the bed, nudging the god’s thighs apart with his knee and placing himself between them, leaning down to press his mouth to Loki’s. He sought out the long, dark hair, tangling his fingers into it and pulling Loki closer, deepening the kiss. He felt two arms wrap themselves around him and hoped that they would never let go.

Tony moved lower, kissing along the angular jaw and down to where the neck met the shoulder. He nibbled and sucked at the sensitive spot, drawing little moans of pleasure from Loki.

“Anthony...” He heard him whisper.

Tony pulled away and looked down at him. “I’m sorry, Loki, this isn’t going to work.”

Loki stared up at him, eyes widening with shock. “What?”

Tony grinned. “The ‘Anthony’ thing has gotta stop. I mean, it’s cute and all, but considering we’re about to make love, I think it’s probably Ok if you start calling me Tony.”

Loki laughed and punched him playfully on the shoulder. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“Got to keep you on your toes.”

Loki smirked. “If I were on my toes you’d look even shorter than you do already.”

“You’re not that much taller than me.”

To get his revenge, Tony pushed up the t-shirt that Loki wore, fastened his lips on one pink nipple and sucked hard, teasing it with his teeth. Loki squealed.

Tony pulled Loki’s t-shirt off over his head but left it tangled around his arms, leaving him defenceless as he went to work on the other nipple. Loki wriggled frantically beneath him, crying for mercy.

“Please, Anthony, I promise I won’t make any more short jokes, but you’re driving me mad here.” Tony raised his head and gave the god a stern look. “Tony! I meant Tony.”

“That’s better.” Tony sat up and pulled his own t-shirt over his head as Loki finally managed to free his arms. Loki immediately reached up to run his hands over the engineer’s chest, fingers skimming across the glowing arc reactor as if intrigued by it. Tony let him explore; he had explained he device to Loki once, but had never shown him.

Loki tapped it gently. “This is what prevented the sceptre from taking control of your mind?”

“It does have its uses,” Tony laughed.

Loki studied it for a few moments more, then he pushed himself upwards, slipping an arm around Tony’s back, and kissed the arc reactor lovingly. Then he lay back on the bed, smiling up at the engineer.

It was probably the hottest thing anyone had ever done to him.

Within seconds Tony had yanked off Loki’s jeans (he still had not managed to persuade the god to wear underwear) and buried his face between his legs, licking and nipping at the soft skin of his inner thighs. The effect on Loki was electric, his breathing grew ragged as he moaned and writhed in ecstasy.

Tony couldn’t resist looking up to ask, “You like that?”

Loki’s response was an incoherent grunt.

Grinning, Tony wrapped a hand around Loki’s cock, stroking gently at first, then moving a little faster, squeezing a little tighter.

Loki’s head lolled backwards and he closed his eyes. “Fuck, Tony... I can’t hold it...”

“Then don’t.” Tony leaned over him, hand pumping the entire length of Loki’s cock, and whispered, “Come on, baby, come for me.”

As if on command Loki let out a long, low moan, hips thrusting upwards as Tony drew him to an intense, shuddering climax.

Tony watched him as he came down, face flushed, lips slightly parted as he drew short, shallow breaths. His eyelids fluttered open, looking up at Tony as if surprised to see him.

“Hi, welcome back,” Tony smiled. ”You look like you enjoyed that.”

Loki nodded, unable to speak.

“So...” Tony pushed himself up onto his knees, wiping his now-sticky hand on his jeans. ”You look tired. You wanna sleep now?”

A wicked gleam appeared in Loki’s eyes. Untangling his legs from around Tony’s, he rolled onto his stomach and wriggled around to face the engineer. He shoved Tony’s knees apart and deftly unzipped his jeans, freeing his straining erection. Without hesitation, he took Tony’s cock into his mouth, lips and tongue caressing the smooth shaft.

Tony almost exploded on the spot. Loki may not have magic, but fucking hell, that mouth could work miracles! The god was teasing him horribly, lapping at the sensitive head of his cock, running the tip of his his tongue lightly up and down the length of it, then without warning he dove forward and took the whole lot to the very back of his throat.

Tony thrust into Loki’s mouth, hips seeming to move of their own volition. Where did the god learn to give head like that? If this kept up he would shoot his load down Loki’s throat in less than a minute, and, wonderful as that would be, it was not the way he planned on finishing the evening...

Reluctantly, he pulled out of Loki’s mouth and stood up, shucking off his own jeans and underwear and kicking them aside. He moved around the bed and opened a drawer. It didn’t do to keep the lube too far from the bed.

Slicking up his fingers, he sat on the bed next to Loki, who was still lying on his front, eyes following the engineer’s every movement. “Relax, babe,” he murmured. “I’m gonna take it real slow, Ok?”

Very gently, he slid his fingers between Loki’s cheeks. Loki raised his hips, pushing his rear upwards to meet him, thighs parting a little to aid Tony’s progress.

Tony found the tiny, tight entrance and stroked it in slow, languid circles, not pushing, but simply caressing, until Loki was slick and loose enough to allow the tip of one finger to slip in with no resistance. Tony pressed a little further, slowly, very slowly, and Loki whined into the bedclothes as the finger breached the tight ring of muscle.

“That OK?” Tony asked. “I can stop if you want.”

“You stop and I’ll never speak to you again,” Loki groaned, rocking his hips backwards and impaling himself deeper onto Tony’s finger.

Tony gasped in mock horror. “You mean no more short jokes and telling me I’ve missed a bit when I’m shaving? Whatever will I do without that smart mouth of yours?”

“This smart mouth almost had you coming in thirty seconds, so I’d stop fucking complaining if I were you.”

Tony grinned and shoved his finger fully inside. Loki cried out in delight.

In no hurry to get his evening of pleasure over with, Tony kept the pace slow, slipping in another digit, then a third, leisurely fingering the tight hole open, enjoying the incredible noises that he drew from his new lover’s lips.

“Anthony...” Tony tapped Loki’s ass lightly with his free hand. “Tony... please...”

“You want more?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Tony gently withdrew his fingers. He leaned over to the drawer from which he had taken the lube and took out a small packet.

Loki looked at him curiously as he opened it. “What’s that?”

“It’s a condom.” Tony frowned. “Has no one you’ve slept with ever used one of these?”

“No... should they have?”

So, Asgard wasn’t big on underwear or contraceptives. He’d have to sit Loki down for a talk about that at some point. “Yes, they should have. But that’s Ok, you didn’t know. It might feel a bit different, but for now, until we get your test results back from the doctor, we’ll be using these, OK?“ Tony rolled the latex sheath over his cock, then smiled wickedly at Loki. “Now, where were we?”

It took barely a second to roll Loki onto his back and position himself between his thighs once more. Resting on his knees, he pulled the slender legs around his waist, his cock nudging it’s way between the god’s ass cheeks. The lube still lay on the bed next to them, but Loki was already so slick that Tony didn’t think he’d need any more.

“You sure you’re ready for this?”

“Just hurry up and fuck me, will you?”

Alright then.

Gripping the smooth thighs, Tony pushed himself slowly forward, sliding his length into Loki’s body. Even when slippery and stretched from Tony’s fingers, the little hole was still deliciously tight, and the engineer let out a rapturous sigh.

The sensation seemed to drive Loki wild, he thrust his hips hard against Tony’s crotch, bucking against him as if unable to control himself.

“Hey, hey, what’s the rush?” Tony pulled back, holding tightly to Loki’s legs to slow his frantic writhing. “Look, if you want to stop...”

“No, please don’t stop. I’m sorry, it’s just... I’m not used to...”

“To slowing down and enjoying it? It’s Ok, I can help you with that.”

Placing his hands on Loki’s hips, Tony lifted his ass off of the bed and slid into him again. He fucked the god lazily, pumping into him with long, measured strokes, holding his hips tightly to calm his movements whenever he showed signs of wanting to go faster, forcing him to accept the leisurely pace. Loki’s legs tightened around his back, drawing him in deeper. His fingers tangled into the bedclothes, his eyes were closed and he was keening in sheer, unadulterated bliss. The sound almost drove Tony out of his mind.

“How’s that feel, baby?” he asked. His voice sounded rough.

“Good. Oh gods, Tony, it feels so good. I can’t remember the last time it felt good.”

“It’s Ok. It’s all gonna feel good from now on, baby, I promise.”

Loki’s eyes opened. “From now on? I don’t... what does that mean?”

Tony stared into the wide green eyes, his heart pounding. Now, he told himself. It has to be now, or you’ll never do it at all.

“I want you to be happy, Loki, whatever you decide to do after this. It’s your choice, I won’t push it either way. But, if you think that you could be happy here, then... I want you to stay. I... want you.”

Loki had stopped moving, even his breath seemed to have stilled. Tony tried to read the expression on his face, not daring to move himself. Did Loki believe him? Had he said too much?

He felt two hands on his wrists, their touch soft and lingering, before sliding up his arms towards his shoulders. The fingers suddenly clamped around his biceps, the pale thighs gripped his waist tightly, and Loki’s body arched up off of the bed to meet his, his lips finding the engineer’s mouth.

The kiss was fierce and unashamedly wanton, and Tony felt fireworks go off in his head. He had never been kissed like this before. He flung his arms around Loki, pulling him so close that he felt the embrace might crush him. He could feel the god clinging to him as if he were a rock in the middle of a raging sea. He knelt with Loki in his lap, cock still buried deep inside him. If the world ended right now he probably wouldn’t even notice. There was only Loki, beautiful Loki, who would stay with him, who would be his.

He laid his green eyed god back down onto the bed, arms still locked around him, never breaking the kiss. His hips began to move again, the same unhurried pace as before. He could feel Loki’s cock rubbing against his stomach, trapped between their bodies, his muscles gripping Tony’s length tightly. It felt incredible.

An urgent moan escaped Loki’s throat, he clearly wasn’t going to last much longer.

Neither was Tony. He could feel his orgasm building in his loins, growing more intense with every stroke, until it finally overwhelmed him. His body flooded with heat as he thrust himself up to the hilt into Loki, letting out a ragged groan, the sound stifled against the god’s lips. It was answered by Loki’s own muffled cry, his back arching wildly as he came.

Tony finally broke off the kiss and sank down onto his lover, resting his head on Loki’s chest. His brain had gone fuzzy, he was certain that he would be incapable of rational thought ever again. He could hear Loki’s heartbeat. It was his new favourite sound. He felt a hand on the back of his neck, fingers running through his hair.

“Tony...” Loki whispered.

“Yeah?”

“You did mean it, didn’t you? When you said you wanted me to stay?”

Tony snuggled in closer. “You know what, forget what I said. You don’t have a choice. You’re staying whether you like it or not. And if you ever try to leave I’ll lock you in the basement and keep you as my own personal sex slave.”

His head bounced on the god’s chest as Loki laughed softly.

“You came all over my stomach,” Tony murmured. “If I stay here we’re gonna wake up stuck together.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

It took a lot of effort for the exhausted Tony to lever himself up off of Loki. His chest and belly were sticky with Loki’s come. “Ought to shower,” he muttered to himself.

He pulled his softening cock reluctantly out of the god’s ass, hearing him whimper a little as he did so. He felt wonderfully lethargic. He looked to the door of the bathroom, then back at Loki, who was watching him with his eyes half closed; he clearly wasn’t going to move anytime soon.

“Ah, fuck the shower.”

Tony slid the condom off and dropped it on the floor on top of his jeans. He would get rid of it in the morning. He picked up Loki’s discarded t-shirt and wiped the stickiness off of his stomach with it, before leaning over and mopping Loki up in the same way.

“Do you always make this much mess when you come?” he asked.

“I’ve never really noticed.” Loki’s mouth twitched upwards at the corners. “We’ll have to try it again and find out.”

Tony dumped the t-shirt on the floor again and crawled up the bed to lie next to him, dragging the blankets up to cover them both. “Scientific principal says that an experiment should be conducted several times in order to get accurate results.”

“What a shame.” Loki yawned.

Tony turned onto his side and pulled Loki round to face him. They lay in a close embrace, limbs tangled, foreheads together. Loki was blinking sleepily, Tony could barely keep his own eyes open. There were a million things he wanted to say, but they could wait. Right now he was content simply to lie in silence, watching Loki drift off to sleep. It didn’t take long for him to follow.

 

 

Tony normally loved board meetings. He knew that he was unusual in this, but there was something about gaining the upper hand in a verbal sparring match with some pompous executive that he found exhilarating. Not today though. Today he wished they would all just fuck off home. Someone had voiced their opinion that raising the employees pension rate would suck the company’s coffers dry. Tony’s brain had taken a left turn at the word ‘suck’ and was now projecting an image of Loki on his knees deepthroating his dick into his mind.

“Well, looks like that’s about it for today.”

Tony was brought back to consciousness by the sound of a dozen chairs being scraped across the floor as people stood up.

The executive who had spoken looked at his watch. “Is that the time? We’ve overrun. Tony, fancy coming for a drink? Sun’s over the yard arm and all that.”

“Uh, another time maybe. I have other things to do right now.” Other things being Loki, of course.

Leaving the conference room, he put a hand in his pocket. Shit, he must have left his cellphone upstairs. Thor had taken to calling at around six every evening to ask how Loki was doing. The meeting had overrun by a long time, Tony might have missed his call.

“JARVIS,” he called, “Has Mr Odinson called today?”

_He is on your private line now, sir._

“Crap. Tell him to hold on, I’m on my way.”

_I shouldn’t worry about it, sir. He is talking to Mr Laufeyson._

“He’s talking to Loki?“

_Yes, sir. Mr Laufeyson is in your room._

Tony dashed upstairs.

“Yes,” he heard Loki saying as he approached the bedroom. “Yes, of course.” His voice was quiet, almost subdued.

Tony peered around the door, desperate to know what was going on but not wanting to interrupt the conversation.

Loki was wandering the room absently, Tony’s phone to his ear. “Yes,” he said again, “I see. That’s good. And... how is Mother?” There was a pause. “Good, I am glad she is well. Give... give her my love when you see her... and tell her I’m getting better, would you? Tell her... I’m getting better.”

Thor’s response must have been positive; Loki’s mouth turned up at the corners for a second.

“A month? Oh, no, I’m sure that would be fine, it will be... good to see you. I’m sure Anthony will think so too.

“You are being called to dinner. Is that Jane I can hear? She sounds... nice, I suppose. And who is that..? She’s the one who Tasered you, yes? Oh, I can’t wait to meet her.

“Yes, of course, I’ll tell him you called. Perhaps... we might talk again tomorrow? Yes, I should like that... Yes, I’ll speak to you again soon then.”

Silence, as Thor, at the other end of the line, said his goodbyes.

Loki stopped wandering and stood still on the thick rug at the foot of the bed, phone cradled to his ear, and as Tony watched, he smiled. It was a small smile, but a genuine one.

“I love you too, brother.”

 

 

The days passed and Tony wondered what on earth he had done with himself before the god had turned up. Loki just seemed to... fit. It was as if there had always been a place for him at the Tower, he had simply had to show up and slide right in.

He had even made friends with JARVIS.

Well, ‘friends’ might be a slight exaggeration, but the god and the AI had certainly had some interesting conversations.

Well, _debates_ might be a more accurate description.

Well, alright, it was bickering.

Tony walked into the common room one morning to find Loki curled on the couch, reading an ancient encyclopedia that must have once belonged to Tony’s father, while JARVIS intoned from above, _If you wish to know about Norse mythology, Mr Laufeyson, I have access to a wealth of information..._

“Have you seen what they’ve written about me and the horse? That is not how it happened at all.”

_As I was saying, the information in that book is somewhat outdated and extremely limited..._

“And woefully inaccurate.”

_Indeed. As it happens, there is a great deal of information about you on the Internet, the incident with the horse seems to be a particularly popular topic for discussion._

“First of all, the beast came on to _me_...”

_I’m sure it did. Would you like to see some of the other things people say about you?_

“I’m perfectly capable of looking it up myself, I don’t need any help from a glorified search engine.”

_I am a multifunctional software program. My capabilities go far beyond surfing the net._

“Yes, I’ve noticed. They also include switching the lights on and reciting the Chinese takeout menu.”

_I control everything in Stark Tower. I also provide life support control for Mr Stark’s armour and allow him to interface with the various subsystems. Not bad for a ‘search engine’._

“Yeah, but can you do this?” Loki stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry in the direction of the ceiling. Tony sniggered at the childish gesture.

 _Yes, I can._ Tony had to put a hand over his mouth to keep from giggling as Loki’s own raspberry was played back to him.

“I can do this.” Loki put the encyclopedia down, stood up and walked around the coffee table, before putting his hands on his hips and shooting a challenging look at the ceiling. “Beat that.”

_The closed circuit camera system allows me to see everything in this building. I have no need to walk anywhere._

Loki cast his eyes around, seemingly at a loss. JARVIS 1, Loki 0, Tony thought.

Loki turned his head and spotted him. An evil grin spread across his face. Within three seconds he had crossed the room, tangled a hand in Tony’s hair and pulled his head back, forcing his face upwards.

“I can do this,” he said wickedly, and stuck his tongue down Tony’s throat. 

It seemed like days before Loki came up for air. He smiled sweetly at Tony before looking expectantly at the ceiling.

_I feel no human emotions, such activity is of no interest to me._

Loki shook his head, resigned, and looked back at Tony, who was licking his bruised lips and fighting the urge to drag the god straight to the bedroom and fuck him into next week. “You know, I can’t help feeling a bit sorry for poor JARVIS. He must be missing out terribly, not being able to feel emotion.”

“Yeah... missing out...” Tony dragged his protesting brain back into reality. “Perhaps there’s something we can do about that...”

 

 

One their return from S.H.I.E.L.D, Bruce and Steve walked into the common room to find Tony lounging on the couch, one arm around Loki, who was flicking bits of popcorn into the air for the engineer to catch in his mouth. Judging by the mess on the floor he had missed most of it.

Steve blinked in surprise. Bruce smiled to himself.

“Hey, welcome back,” Tony hailed them. "You guys had a good time? I have." He grinned broadly.

Bruce’s smile widened. “Hi. So, what're you two watching?”

Steve gave him a questioning look; Bruce mouthed that he would explain later.

“Titanic,” Tony replied, as Loki flicked another piece of popcorn, which bounced off his nose.

“They made a movie about that?” Steve asked, staring at the screen.

“Yeah. It’s almost finished or I’d invite you to watch it with us.”

There was an odd sound coming from the speaker in the ceiling. It sounded almost like... sniffling?

_Can we turn it off now, sir?_

“What’s wrong, JARVIS, too many plot holes?”

_No, sir... it’s just... it’s so desperately sad, sir..._

Bruce stared aghast at Tony. “What the hell did you do?”

“Loki felt bad for JARVIS not being able to feel emotion, so we made a few little... tweaks.”

Loki smirked as the sniffling grew louder.

_The wardrobe door is easily large enough for two people to fit on. Had they used Rose’s life jacket as a buoyancy aid, Jack could have survived. He didn’t have to die._

Bruce and Steve exchanged worried glances.

Tony was grinning, and Loki started to giggle, as the voice from the ceiling wailed, _It’s inaccurate AND sad!_

 

**Epilogue**

 

Tony lay on his back, breathing heavily, one arm around Loki, who lay with his head on Tony’s chest. The god was insatiable in the sack, as Tony was finding out.

Suddenly, he remembered something.

“Loki... What happened with you and the goat?”

Loki yawned. “Goat?”

“Thor once mentioned an incident with a goat.”

Loki thought for a moment. “Oh, _that_ goat.”

“Yeah, _that_ goat.”

Loki shrugged. “Nothing really. Just a friendly game of tug-of-war.”

“With a goat?”

“Well, no one else wanted to play.”

“Yeah, but... with a goat? I mean, how much competition could one little goat be against a god?”

“I gave him an advantage. I wasn’t exactly _pulling_ on the rope, you see. It was more... _attached_ somewhere.”

“Oh... _oh!_ ” Tony stared at Loki in amazement. “Wow, you really can’t hold your booze, can you?”

“So I’ve been told.”

Loki snuggled into Tony’s shoulder. Tony rested his cheek against the soft, dark hair, feeling his eyelids growing heavy. He was almost asleep when he heard Loki mutter, “I still say the bloody goat cheated.”


End file.
